This company made electric motors and the "Rotarex" line of bench grinders. Based on the two examples we have seen, they were probably active sometime in the 1920s until they were acquired by White Sewing Machine Co., which in 1964 would change its name to White Consolidated Industries.
The "Apex" brand was used on sanders made by Rankin Bros. Manufacturing Inc. of Lynwood, CA. Rankin was acquired by PAL Industries, Inc., and we have seen machines labeled "Apex / Manufactured by PAL Industries, Inc." We have found no evidence of a connection between Apex Electrical Manufacturing Co. and the Apex line of sanders.
Information Sources
- Thanks to former OWWMer Don England, on whose web site we first spied the label of a grinder from this company. Don has a tablesaw that uses a slightly modified bench grinder as the motor.
- A patent search reveals patents assigned to this maker as late as 1958. The patents are related to washing machines, dryers, ironing machines, dishwashers, and vacuum cleaners. Between 1920 and 1958 there were 264 patents assigned to this company. About half are US patents, one quarter are Canadian patents, and the remainder are German, French, British, and Swiss. There were no patents found for sanders or grinders, but it is possible that any such patents were granted before 1920, where we currently cannot search by assignee.
- The corporate database of the Ohio Secretary of State has a listing for Apex Electrical Manufacturing Co. First registration was 1912-06-24, and it was merged out of existence on 1956-10-01. None of the actual documents are online so further details are unavailable without an in-person visit.
- From the online Encyclopedia of Cleveland History.
- A correspondent reported that he has a working Apex Electrical Mfg. Co. vacuum cleaner.